Jean monologue (Act 3) — Plays by August Strindberg, Second series

The mistress of everything, the chief ornament of the house. With your looks--and your manners--oh, success will be assured! Enormous! You'll sit like a queen in the office and keep the slaves going by the touch of an electric button. The guests will pass in review before your throne and timidly deposit their treasures on your table. You cannot imagine how people tremble when a bill is presented to them--I'll salt the items, and you'll sugar them with your sweetest smiles. Oh, let us get away from here--[pulling a time-table from his pocket]--at once, with the next train! We'll be in Malmö at 6.30; in Hamburg at 8.40 to-morrow morning; in Frankfort and Basel a day later. And to reach Como by way of the St. Gotthard it will take us--let me see--three days. Three days!